me likey

 

SAD BUT TRUE

I am going to sound like a broken record but this is something I really feel passionate about. Those that know me personally will tell you how I feel about education. It really hurts me to see a girl or woman in this day in age that refuses to go and further their studies after matric. We are living in a country that affords women the same opportunities as men. This is something that I feel we take for granted. Girls in Afghanistan have to literally fight for their freedom to education and yet there is a 20 year old woman in South Africa that CHOOSES not to study. Why are we as South Africans so lazy? What am I missing here?

There is a 13 year old girl in Afghanistan that is lying in hospital as I am writing this because she was fighting for her education. She bravely stood up to the Taliban, accusing them of taking away a woman's right to choose how she lives. Her outspoken views four years ago made her a target for extremists and she has received constant death threats ever since. She was shot in the head and neck on a school bus by a Taliban marksman on 9 October.

Before she was gunned down, she had spoken out against the Taliban regime from the age of just 11, blogging about their brutality in the region where she lived before Pakistan's government decided to increase its efforts against the extremists.

The next time you decide to complain, think of the girl that is fighting for her life for fighting for what she believes in. observe around you and be thankful for all that you have in this transitory lifetime. We are really fortunate that we have much more than what we need to be content.

Not for sensitive viewers

The other day i went to a toy store looking for a gift for my friend's child. While I was there, I passed a doll isle which had barbies (obviously), etc. I was pretty amused to see the “black” Barbie. AND THEN I SAW THIS. LOOK CLOSELY AT THE PICTURE. Notice at how this doll has a baby and weave on the side. Oh I also forgot to mention the “SIS”  that is written bigger than the name of the doll itself.

Now look at this picture below. Notice how the “white” Barbie has a scooter. What’s right with this picture? Or am I being too sensitive? What message is “Barbie” sending about black women? Are they saying that all that black women know is just give birth to babies and put on weaves? That may be so for others but what about us hard working young black women that are trying to make it in the corporate world? Don’t we matter? I’m sorry but I was totally disturbed by this.

Black, Smooth and Velvety

 

Self Love

Knowing how to love yourself is extremely important. Self love is at the very core of wellbeing, joy, self-empowerment, and your ability to create and enjoy the kind of life you want. You cannot enjoy happiness if you are not at peace with yourself. Your relationship with yourself is the most important one you’ll ever have.

From the spiritual perspective, it is by turning your attention inward to yourself that you are able to experience your connection with Life, with God, with All That Is.

From the human perspective, every relationship you ever have with someone else exactly mirrors one or more aspects of the relationship you have with yourself. Until you know how to love yourself there will be an inner war going on that divides your energy and sabotages your efforts to move toward happiness.
Besides that, if you lack your own love, you attract people and circumstances that mirror your negative beliefs and feelings about yourself. We draw to us the manifestations of what we FEEL. So, in order for you to draw in loving people and circumstances, you need to know how to love yourself first. This is what they mean by the law of attraction.

 “You can search throughout the universe for someone who is more deserving of you love and affection that you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.” Siddhartha Guatama Buddha

My kinda look

 

Unnamed

I honestly couldn't come up with a name for this post. so let's just leave it as "Unnamed." I actually dedicate this post to my sister. This is why.

This ladies and gentlemen is Saul Williams. My sister, Katlego Tong is totally obsessed with this man. Here is one of his poems.

As If Thighs Were Parentheses by Saul Williams

What my fame affords me
I will use to spread the light
that is caused by the book
that burns to clean the air
at night.

There are some
that would save
the book and others
that would write.

There are those
who would die
for it and soldiers
who would fight.

I have learned
of this book that burns
that it cannot be helped.

There are words
that will catch aflame
as others tend to melt.

There are phrases
soft turns of speech
that shake flesh to the bone.

There are ways
of our saying things
that shape truth into poems.

Or perhaps
they outline a shape
that is already there

like the face
of my sweet beloved
framed by unruly hair.

And these strands
are just words combined
to comb through with
your eyes.

They are wigs
over mountaintops

-the snow
that draws
the eyes.

They are there
when you see them not.

What man sees
his own heart?

He is drugged
and then put asleep
before he’s cut apart.

And procedures
like this only done
when arteries are clogged.

Spills and waste
down the mountainside
with forests cut and logged.

All the trees
now shaped
into books
and building-
blocks designed
will take shape
from the mountainside-

the forest of the mind.

And the mind is an active place
where climate will control
means of growth and the greenery
that springs up from the soul.

And the soul
it is like the soil
-as i am into u.

What begins
as a seed of thought
now manifests as true.

It takes time
for a rock to melt
-to decompose a corpse.

And the soil
is full rich with time
like mountains rich with quartz.

Full of charge.
Full of energy.

Full of nutrients and life
sucked from death
which is overturned
and risen to new heights.

Over time
life repeats itself-
the cycle of the wheel.

And the will
is a driving force
to feed, defend, and kill.

What it kills
takes a different shape
as consciousness transforms.

Laws emerge
to defend new life
and thus new crimes are born.

And what’s born
from a spinning wheel
is willed and welled
to shape.

Forms emerge
from the sculptors hand
nuanced by love and hate.

And the hate
is grown out of love
of comfort and control
and is shaped by the overgrowth
of fear/hope decomposed.

We compose
with creators hands
the music of the mind.

We choose words
like piano keys
to ease thought into chimes.

And we chime upon everything
and every sound we hear.

We diffuse
all times ticking bombs
to distill hope from fear.

And the hope
that we plant we tend.
We water, trim, and cut.

Like the grape
on its path to wine-

we smash beneath our strut.

And we strike chords with expertise.

We lean into each note.

We give time a new signature.

Small hand on big throat.

All the gun barrels
placed in mouths

all the tongues
fingers
parts

can account
for the silent times
where words
play no part.

Love is art
of the give and take
the build and break
the bends.

It is found in
a simple kiss

the laughing bliss
of friends.

And our friends
and our enemies
are much more
than they seem.

They are tall
booming beams
of light with their own
hopes and dreams.

We form teams-
nationalities-
taking sides
with our own.

We commit
to our fantasies
our prayers
and our poems.

And these poems
how they turn to dust
how they blossom with time.

They are like seeds
the farmer plants
with bare hands
in the mind.

And my mind
feels the brush of wind
takes strangers in
notes signs.

It is coaxed
by the pretty face
Egyptian lace
the kind.

And it broods
in it’s silent place.

And stirs
when she calls.

And it prays
for a peaceful space.

And answers to Saul.

But it knows
it knows none of it.

And it blurs
by the feed.

It prefers
all the gentler things
and cyclically bleeds.

And it bleeds
flowing streams of words
through the silence of night.

Softest page
of her inner thigh.

She asks
“What would you write?”

I would write
of a burning book.

How each thought stood alone.

How the words had formed families
sheltered from the unknown.

How the unknown would come again
for the words could not hide
truths and meanings
they held within
when the pen
took no sides.

And the pen
could be fingertips

softest tongue
against flesh

little toes
against calves
and necks

behind ear
with soft breaths.

And the writing
became the walls
and proposed new design

until silence took charge again
and disposed
of the mind.

How she laughed
when I told her that.

How she smiled
and she stirred.

How the room
took a different light.

How the lights
beamed and blurred.

All the lights
of the city gleamed
as if all burned at once.

All the thoughts
gently laid to rest-
the bequest of new Suns.

And the books
that would hold these thoughts
were the Suns that now burned
in small rooms that were
just like this
where we basked
and took turns.

And the spotlights
that shine on me
navigate every touch.

I am moved
to the darkest space
where small stanzas erupt.

And eruptions
they blind and quake
when too close
to the site.

As if thighs
were parentheses
holding silence
in light